He had rung loudly at the door of a great dark house in the centre of Poultney Square. It was opened immediately, and the figure of a tall woman was outlined against the dim-lit hall.
“Well, what do you want?” she asked, sharply, peering at us through the darkness.
“I want to speak to Dr. Shlessinger,” said Holmes.
“There is no such person here,” she answered, and tried to close the door, but Holmes had jammed it with his foot.
“Well, I want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call himself,” said Holmes, firmly.
She hesitated. Then she threw open the door. “Well, come in!” said she. “My husband is not afraid to face any man in the world.” She closed the door behind us, and showed us into a sitting-room on the right side of the hall, turning up the gas as she left us. “Mr. Peters will be with you in an instant,” she said.
Her words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around the dusty and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before the door opened and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped lightly into the room. He had a large red face, with pendulous cheeks, and a general air of superficial benevolence which was marred by a cruel, vicious mouth.
“There is surely some mistake here, gentlemen,” he said in an unctuous, make-everything-easy voice. “I fancy that you have been misdirected. Possibly if you tried farther down the street—”
“That will do; we have no time to waste,” said my companion firmly. “You are Henry Peters, of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of Baden and South America. I am as sure of that as that my own name is Sherlock Holmes.”
Peters, as I will now call him, started and stared hard at his formidable pursuer. “I guess your name does not frighten me, Mr. Holmes,” said he coolly. “When a man’s conscience is easy you can’t rattle him. What is your business in my house?”
“I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom you brought away with you from Baden.”
“I’d be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be,” Peters answered, coolly. “I’ve a bill against her for nearly a hundred pounds, and nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery pendants that the dealer would hardly look at. She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me at Baden (it is a fact that I was using another name at the time), and she stuck on to us until we came to London. I paid her bill and her ticket. Once in London, she gave us the slip, and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. You find her, Mr. Holmes, and I’m your debtor.”
“I mean to find her,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I’m going through this house till I do find her.”
“Where is your warrant?”
Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. “This will have to serve till a better one comes.”
“Why, you are a common burglar.”32
“So you might describe me,” said Holmes, cheerfully. “My companion is also a dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your house.”
Our opponent opened the door.
“Fetch a policeman, Annie!” said he. There was a whisk of feminine skirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.
“Our time is limited, Watson,” said Holmes. “If you try to stop us, Peters, you will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which was brought into your house?”
“What do you want with the coffin? It is in use. There is a body in it.”
“I must see that body.”
“Never with my consent.”
“Then without it.” With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to one side and passed into the hall. A door half opened stood immediately before us. We entered. It was the dining-room. On the table, under a half-lit chandelier, the coffin was lying. Holmes turned up the gas and raised the lid. Deep down in the recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure. The glare from the lights above beat down upon an aged and withered face. By no possible process of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady Frances. Holmes’s face showed his amazement, and also his relief.
“Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket.”
Alec Ball, Strand Magazine, 1911
“Thank God!” he muttered. “It’s someone else.”
“Ah, you’ve blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Peters, who had followed us into the room.
“Who is this dead woman?”
“Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife’s, Rose Spender her name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse Infirmary.33 We brought her round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13, Firbank Villas—mind you take the address, Mr. Holmes—and had her carefully tended, as Christian folk should. On the third day she died—certificate says senile decay—but that’s only the doctor’s opinion, and, of course, you know better. We ordered her funeral to be carried out by Stimson and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at eight o’clock to-morrow morning. Can you pick any hole in that, Mr. Holmes? You’ve made a silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it. I’d give something for a photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax, and only found a poor old woman of ninety.”
“Our time is limited, Watson,” said Holmes. “If you try to stop us, Peters, you will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which was brought into your house?”
Frederick Dorr Steele, American Magazine, 1911
Holmes’s expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.
“I am going through your house,” said he.
“Are you, though!” cried Peters, as a woman’s voice and heavy steps sounded in the passage. “We’ll soon see about that. This way, officers, if you please. These men have forced their way into my house, and I cannot get rid of them. Help me to put them out.”
A sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway. Holmes drew his card from his case.
“This is my name and address. This is my friend, Dr. Watson.”
“Bless you, sir, we know you very well,” said the sergeant, “but you can’t stay here without a warrant.”
“Of course not. I quite understand that.”
“Arrest him!” cried Peters.
“We know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted,” said the sergeant, majestically, “but you’ll have to go, Mr. Holmes.”
“Yes, Watson, we shall have to go.”
A minute later we were in the street once more. Holmes was as cool as ever, but I was hot with anger and humiliation. The sergeant had followed us.
“Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that’s the law.”
“Exactly, Sergeant, you could not do otherwise.”
“I expect there was good reason for your presence there. If there is anything I can do—”
“It’s a missing lady, Sergeant, and we think she is in that house. I expect a warrant presently.”
“Then I’ll keep my eye on the parties, Mr. Holmes. If anything comes along, I will surely let you know.”
It was only nine o’clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at once. First we drove to Brixton Workhouse Infirmary, where we found that it was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some days before, that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former servant and that they had obtained permission to take her away with them. No surprise was expressed at the news that she had since died.
The doctor was our next goal. He had been called in, had found the woman dying of pure senility, had actually seen her pass away, and had signed the certificate in due form. “I assure you that everything was perfectly normal and there was no room for foul play in the matter,” said he. Nothing in the house had struck him as suspicious, save that for people of their class it was remarkable that they should have no servant. So far and no farther went the doctor.
Finally we found our way to Scotland Yard. There had been difficu
lties of procedure in regard to the warrant. Some delay was inevitable. The magistrate’s signature might not be obtained until next morning. If Holmes would call about nine he could go down with Lestrade and see it acted upon. So ended the day, save that near midnight our friend, the sergeant, called to say that he had seen flickering lights here and there in the windows of the great dark house, but that no one had left it and none had entered. We could but pray for patience, and wait for the morrow.
Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conversation and too restless for sleep. I left him smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows knotted together, and his long nervous fingers tapping upon the arms of his chair, as he turned over in his mind every possible solution of the mystery. Several times in the course of the night I heard him prowling about the house. Finally, just after I had been called in the morning, he rushed into my room. He was in his dressing-gown, but his pale, hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been a sleepless one.
“Quick, man, quick! It’s life or death!”
Frederick Dorr Steele, American Magazine, 1911
A funeral procession outside London.
A Hundred Years Ago
“What time was the funeral? Eight, was it not?” he asked, eagerly. “Well, it is seven-twenty now. Good heavens, Watson, what has become of any brains that God has given me? Quick, man, quick! It’s life or death—a hundred chances on death to one on life. I’ll never forgive myself, never, if we are too late!”
Five minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansom down Baker Street. But even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed Big Ben, and eight struck as we tore down the Brixton Road. But others were late as well as we. Ten minutes after the hour the hearse was still standing at the door of the house, and even as our foaming horse came to a halt the coffin, supported by three men, appeared on the threshold. Holmes darted forward and barred their way.
“Take it back!” he cried, laying his hand on the breast of the foremost. “Take it back this instant!”
“What the devil do you mean? Once again I ask you, where is your warrant?” shouted the furious Peters, his big red face glaring over the farther end of the coffin.
“The warrant is on its way. This coffin shall remain in the house until it comes.”
“Holmes darted forward and barred their way.”
Alec Ball, Strand Magazine, 1911
The authority in Holmes’s voice had its effect upon the bearers. Peters had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed these new orders. “Quick, Watson, quick! Here is a screw-driver!” he shouted, as the coffin was replaced upon the table. “Here’s one for you, my man! A sovereign if the lid comes off in a minute! Ask no questions—work away! That’s good! Another! And another! Now pull all together! It’s giving! It’s giving! Ah, that does it at last!”
With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. As we did so there came from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of chloroform.34 A body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool, which had been soaked in the narcotic. Holmes plucked it off and disclosed the statuesque face of a handsome and spiritual woman of middle age. In an instant he had passed his arm round the figure and raised her to a sitting position.
“Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? Surely we are not too late!”
For half an hour it seemed that we were. What with actual suffocation, and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the Lady Frances seemed to have passed the last point of recall. And then, at last, with artificial respiration, with injected ether,35 with every device that science could suggest, some flutter of life, some quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, spoke of the slowly returning life. A cab had driven up, and Holmes, parting the blind, looked out at it. “Here is Lestrade with his warrant,” said he. “He will find that his birds have flown. And here,” he added, as a heavy step hurried along the passage, “is someone who has a better right to nurse this lady than we have. Good morning, Mr. Green; I think that the sooner we can move the Lady Frances the better. Meanwhile, the funeral may proceed, and the poor old woman who still lies in that coffin may go to her last resting-place alone.”
“Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson,” said Holmes that evening, “it can only be as an example of that temporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced mind may be exposed. Such slips are common to all mortals, and the greatest is he who can recognize and repair them. To this modified credit I may, perhaps, make some claim. My night was haunted by the thought that somewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curious observation, had come under my notice and had been too easily dismissed. Then, suddenly, in the grey of the morning, the words came back to me. It was the remark of the undertaker’s wife, as reported by Philip Green. She had said, ‘It should be there before now. It took longer, being out of the ordinary.’ It was the coffin of which she spoke. It had been out of the ordinary. That could only mean that it had been made to some special measurement. But why? Why? Then in an instant I remembered the deep sides, and the little wasted figure at the bottom. Why so large a coffin for so small a body? To leave room for another body. Both would be buried under the one certificate. It had all been so clear, if only my own sight had not been dimmed. At eight the Lady Frances would be buried. Our one chance was to stop the coffin before it left the house.36
“It was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but it was a chance, as the result showed. These people had never, to my knowledge, done a murder. They might shrink from actual violence at the last. They could bury her with no sign of how she met her end, and even if she were exhumed there was a chance for them. I hoped that such considerations might prevail with them. You can reconstruct the scene well enough. You saw the horrible den upstairs, where the poor lady had been kept so long. They rushed in and overpowered her with their chloroform, carried her down, poured more into the coffin to insure against her waking, and then screwed down the lid. A clever device, Watson.37 It is new to me in the annals of crime. If our ex-missionary friends escape the clutches of Lestrade, I shall expect to hear of some brilliant incidents in their future career.”
“THEY COULD BURY HER . . .”
THE premature burial that Lady Frances narrowly escaped represented a very real fear in the nineteenth century, albeit one long concentrated in Germany and France. Horrifying stories of presumed corpses having destroyed coffin lids, torn their garments, and even eaten their own fingers in panic and terror (many of these stories, but not all of them, apocryphal) had been circulating for centuries, proliferating in the wake of plague and cholera epidemics and reaching particular intensity during the eighteenth century. Some became the basis for legends of vampires, others fuelled justifiable fears of physicians and the “science” of medicine.
Pivotal to the movement was physician Jean-Jacques Bruhier d’Ablaincourt’s translation of a 1740 thesis written, in Latin, by Danish-born anatomist Jacques-Bénigne Winslow. Fervent in his convictions, Winslow claimed to have twice been mistaken for dead himself, only to have been revived each time at the last minute. He stated that traditional methods of determining death were frequently inadequate (which, in fact, they were) and, maintaining that only signs of putrefaction constituted definitive proof, insisted that numerous attempts be made to resuscitate a corpse—including sticking a sharp object up the nose, cutting the feet with razors, and pouring vinegar or urine into the mouth—before preparing it for burial.
Bruhier not only translated Winslow’s thesis into French but also added his own treatise, listing further stories and proposing that corpses should rest in mortuaries, supervised by physicians, for a period of seventy-two hours before being buried. Bruhier’s book became a publishing sensation and eventually turned into the two-volume Dissertation sur l’incertitude des signes de la mort, published as a complete work (and dropping mention of Winslow as coauthor) in 1749. Translated into several languages, Bruhier’s books swept through Europe, making their greatest impact in Germany. The
re, a number of “waiting mortuaries” (known as Leichenhäuser) were constructed in the 1790s. Corpses from wealthy families had the privilege of being watched by an attendant or having their lifeless fingers attached by string to a bell. Germany was also the pioneer in inventing security coffins, which were similarly rigged with bells meant to ring at the sign of any movement. The fixation spread to France, where, in the first half of the nineteenth century, doctors published pamphlets suggesting new methods of testing for signs of death. These ranged from holding a corpse’s finger above a flame to see if a blister would form, to systemically pulling a corpse’s tongue for three hours to aid in artificial respiration.
Britain managed to remain apart from the fray for quite some time. Indeed, as late as 1852, Dr. John Simon, in the City of London Medical Reports, decried the custom of delayed burials among the poor, writing, “Fears of premature interment, which had much to do with it, are now seldom spoken of but with a smile.” Jan Bondeson, author of the absorbing Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear, writes that when French interest began to pick up in the 1830s, “the [English] medical establishment was wholly complacent, viewing the Continental preoccupation with premature burial with a mixture of amusement and disgust.” Some of the French pamphlets made their way to Britain and led to various alarmist articles and books being published throughout the early 1800s, although none particularly caught fire with the general public.
Yet just as French and German fascination with premature burial was waning, the British experienced a late surge, stimulated in large part by the 1896 appearance of Premature Burial and How It May Be Prevented, which was written by political activist William Tebb and coauthored by the American Edward Perry Vollum, M.D. Tebb was an abolitionist and an antivaccinationist, an aficionado of medical science but not a physician himself. His book attracted its share of exasperated critics, notably among the clergy and the medical establishment—who pointed out the extreme unreliability of newspaper and verbal accounts—but it was generally well received and sold so well that a second edition appeared in 1905. While more extensive than Bruhier’s book, Premature Burial contained many of the same stories Bruhier had cited, with slight variations. Naturally, Tebb and Vollum dismissed any similarities between accounts, chalking them up to coincidence rather than to any sort of pattern that might have called their veracity into question.
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books) Page 69